Open Access

ARTICLE

IR780 loaded hollow MnO₂ nanoparticles for dual-mode imaging and enhanced photodynamic therapy of oral squamous cell carcinoma

WEI PAN^1,2,3,*, YE HE¹, MENGDONG HE^1,2,3, FEI WANG^1,2,3, LIHUA QIU^1,2

1 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Stomatological Hospital Affiliated to Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 401147, China
2 Chongqing Municipal Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedical Engineering of Higher Education, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 401147, China
3 Chongqing Key Laboratory of Ultrasound Molecular Imaging, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400010, China

* Corresponding Author: WEI PAN. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Molecular and Cellular Toxicity of Nanomaterials)

BIOCELL 2022, 46(4), 1079-1088. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2022.016934

Received 11 April 2021; Accepted 07 June 2021; Issue published 15 December 2021

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as a novel therapeutic modality for cancer treatment, but its therapeutic efficacy is severely limited by the hypoxic tumor microenvironment (TME). Here we designed an innovative multifunctional nano-platform which consists of a hollow MnO₂ shell and internal photosensitizer IR780. It is not only used for multimodal imaging of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), but also for adjustment hypoxic TME to enhance cancer treatment. Hollow MnO₂ can promote decomposition of tumor endogenous H₂O₂ to relieve tumor hypoxia, thereby enhancing the effect of photodynamic therapy. Photosensitizer IR780 generates singlet oxygen under laser irradiation to kill tumor cells, playing photodynamic effect, can also act as the contrast agents for photoacoustic and fluorescence multiple imaging, providing potential imaging capability for cancer therapeutic guidance and monitoring. Our research results in this article show that HMnO₂-IR780 nanocomposite exhibits good biocompatibility and nontoxicity, strong PA/FL imaging contrast, excellent oxygen production capacity and outstanding photodynamic therapy effect. This finding provides a new idea for multimodal imaging-guided nanotherapy for OSCC.

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